In modern logistics development, how to improve the transportation efficiency and reduce the logistics costs has become an important issue. Multimodal transportation, as a high-efficiency mode of transportation, represents the development direction of the logistics industry. In China's Medium- and Long-Term Development Plan for Logistics Industry (2014-2020), it has been stressed 18 times to greatly develop multimodal transportation, and multimodal transportation is placed at the strategic level in development of the logistics industry. In addition, the 13th Five-Year Development Plan of China's Ministry of Transport has explicitly put forward a development goal of “seamless connection” of cargo transportation; under this Plan, multimodal transport equipment will be developed greatly, efforts should be made to build a multimodal transportation organization system in which facilities are connected efficiently, hubs transfer rapidly, information is interconnected and shared, equipment is standard and professional and services are integrally matched, and priority should be given to the development of a multimodal transportation system which takes goods loading devices and semitrailers as standard carrier units.
Goods loading device multimodal transportation, as an advanced mode of transportation, has become a significant symbol of modern international cargo transportation. So far multiple modes of transportation, such as road, railway, water transportation and civil aviation in our country have achieved a huge scale, whereas these modes of transportation develop in a scattered way and fail to be linked in harmony. Road goods loading device transportation trucks (hereinafter abbreviated as road container trucks) are the only shuttle tool for effecting goods loading device drayage between ports and railway, air logistics centers. This single mode of transportation is inefficient and causes big pressure and environmental pollution to the ground transportation. As a result, the national comprehensive multimodal transportation develops slowly, and the development of the national comprehensive transportation system is affected.
Therefore, “to accelerate the multimodal transportation facility construction, build collection and distribution channels with matched capabilities, provide modern transit facilities and establish a multimodal transportation information platform” has become important issues for our country to establish a multimodal transportation system.